Thank You
by KnightedRogue
Summary: An old JC challenge oneshot: Leia tells Han about Vader.


**Another forgotten challenge from the JC Boards: "Write how Leia tells Han about her father/heritage/totally screwed-up family." That last descriptionis mine,obviously. Kinda forgot about it - so hereyou go!**

**"Thank You"**

**KR**

* * *

She's up there, so strong, so proud, without a single break in her composure, and telling the entire galaxy her worst nightmare-turned-reality, one she can't ignore or reject.

One the galaxy won't let her forget.

And the newsreps, the parasites to her silent pain, swoop in for the kill, jerking their holorecorders around as if they were fine dining utensils. They swarm around events such as this, at the public display of pain or angst, as if it were the social spectacle of the year, and they have a unique vantage point to relate to anyone who even gives a slight thought in passing to the young princess who had saved a galaxy from Imperial domination.

Not that they seem to remember that particular little feat at the moment.

And he's standing behind her, desperately wishing he could hold her hand, comfort her, tell her that she is no different than she ever has been. That he doesn't _care_, and that he's the only one who really matters.

And he listens to her words, as painstakingly composed as her facial expression, resound off the duracrete walls of an impersonal capital that is of no use other than as a figurehead. And so stands the Rebellion's own figurehead, relating her relations in a calm, detached manner that he expects her to use. One that he had seen attempted before.

One that hadn't fooled him for a second.

Because he knew that figurehead as more than a statue or a piece of historical memorabilia, a trivia question in some political exam. And he knew that she would remain impassive, would finish the terrible task at hand with a grace that he never really appreciated but knew was an essential part of her.

This was the final draft; her first revelation, to him, had been the primary practice, if he could even really call it that. And he sometimes wondered if she even paralleled the experiences. If she compared this presentation of the truth to her initial revelation. How could she? It should have been so much easier for her to tell _him_ than for her to tell the entire galaxy.

But he knew she didn't look at things under the same light.

She had shared the information with him reluctantly, as if she were afraid he would pull away, fight, ignore the data. The cold, hard facts of her parentage. The cruelties that lay therein. The absolute irony that would force Princess Leia Organa, young, impassioned, pacifistic Imperial-Senator-turned-compassionate-Rebel-ringleader to be associated, by blood, no less, to a hideously destructive monster of traitorous tendencies that had ground her dreams and childhood alike into a fine dust.

Literally.

He recalled the sense of self-revulsion she had shown throughout the hours following the destruction of the second Death Star, her small face detached from its usual glow of moral victory. He had sensed this preoccupation in her throughout the hours before darkness befell them. Had questioned her about it.

And she had let her shields fall into place, let her impenetrable mask fall onto her beautiful features, let him see how hurt she must be to allow that mask to exist in front of him.

She had told him of her history. Told him that she was adopted, as he had known, and that Bail Organa had protected her from the truth of her parentage in order to protect her.

And as he saw her shield break down, witnessed the dam break, at the mere thought of her next revelation, she switched topics. She told him that she, like her brother, had a sensitivity to the Force and its visible workings. She told him that she assumed that connection was peculiar to children of Jedi.

He remembered strange theories: Jedi, huh? He imagined a Kenobi-like figure. Maybe even Kenobi himself. And as he mused, he ignored the subtle switch in her eyes. The infinitesimal shift from politician to child, from control to emotion.

And then it broke. Completely.

She said one word. It was a name, a hated name. A name repulsive to everything he was or had ever been. It was a remembrance of pain and torture maintained, of inferiority, of control possessed by the enemy.

That name had caused him to throw his life to the whims, to exact vengeance upon a galaxy that would create such monstrosity. It was a symbol of death, of terror so profound, of memories more seeped with shock than wistfulness or nostalgia.

A name that cursed the citizens of the Empire and Rebellion alike. A name that emphasized black armor, automated breathing. Machine-like non-emotion.

A horrible nightmare of circumstance.

And Han cerebrally contemplated these facts. He couldn't connect the creature, the woman who was such a contradiction in terms in every aspect of life, to that nightmare.

That nightmare might be her lineage.

But she was dream.

And he hadn't pulled away. He hadn't left. Because he couldn't imagine leaving. It never crossed his mind, never graced his thoughts.

It was unthinkable.

She was perfection, a future he had ejected long ago. An opportunity he had thought expired several years in the past, and the sum total of his imagination. Her past wasn't a barrier, a hindrance at all. Because nothing connected her to her nightmare. Nothing was comparable. She would always be deserving of more than he could offer, regardless of blood lineage, and he would always be thankful that she had even regarded him as her equal.

She was still so far above him.

And so he stands beside her as she announces this nightmare vision to her audience, herself a vision in white, and imagines how much time he has to thank her for being herself, to show her, in a thousand different, insignificant ways, that she is everything to him. That she is the reason he breathes, that he bothers with the simmering anger of constant media attention.

She turns her back to a silent crowd, an audience completely awestruck at the news that has brought down the indomitable princess. And he realizes that if they thought it had brought her down, they didn't know her at all. Her eyes immediately seek him out, unwavering in their depths of gratitude. At him. For him.

And only one thing seems appropriate to say to her. A completely inappropriate verbalization of everything these experiences entail. A single, oft-spoken phrase, never more thoughtful or meaningful than it seemed now.

_Thank you._


End file.
